Starting Now
by Pippin's LadyKnight
Summary: Triquel to SFTHOM, TDBAON.
1. Chapter 1

**Starting Now **_by PLK_

I will follow you into the dark

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I promised my son that I would keep her safe. We've done this before, Esme and I. Countless times, even once or twice with our own pups. It was routine, would be routine.

He really is a beautiful baby. Red curls, like cinnamon and soft as cotton on his little feet. If he'd just open those eyes of his…but he seems to be waiting for his mother. And she won't open her eyes either.

"Is she still bleeding? Eglantine!" I turn away from Rose and my grandson, my hands twisting a bloody sheet.

I check, and she still is. A sluggish, but steady flow of red seeps into the blankets, I nod.

Esme's crushing something green, squeezing the paste with her fingers. "Open her mouth. Pinch the jaw hinge." She says sharply. "Rose, put the baby down, and go and get some fresh water."

We both rush to do what she says. The baby doesn't protest being set in the cradle. He's warm and for now that's all he needs.

I pry open Merna's mouth, and Esme pushes the paste in, and helps her to swallow. Rosie's back with a pitcher of water and an armful of cream colored towels. Esme wipes her hands and lifts the sheet up off of Merna's legs.

With a wet towel she washes away the blood from a pair of limp pale legs. "Eglantine, help me. We've got to see where all this blood is coming from."

I nod again, even though, with her back turned to me, she can't see me do it; and grab a towel to start helping.

* * *

"How is she?" Pippin's face is flushed, his voice high.

Rosie jumps a foot, pulling away from the closed door, finished trying to hear something through the thick wood. There's been no sound for the last hour; the baby hasn't even cried.

"Pippin." Rosie says, breathless.

"Is it over?" He asks again, coming closer. Rosie spreads herself in front of the door, nodding. "Can I go in?" Pippin's face is open with delight, his eyes boring holes through the wood.

"No. Pippin, you can't." Her voice is a squeak. A whisper of doubt.

Pippin's face falls suddenly, worry brightening his green eyes. "Why? What's happened?"

Rosie just shakes her head. "They're handling it."

"I need to see her, Rose. I need to see that she's okay. How's the baby?" He swallows down a gulp of air. "Did….It make it?" he says, voice wavering with uncertainty.

She stands there, a worry line between her brows, biting her lip, and nods. "I think I know what will make you feel better, Pip." She says over her shoulder as she slides the door open, and goes through.

Pippin moves to follow her, but the door clicks shut as soon as she is all the way in. Rosie reappears seconds later, holding a green wrapped bundle.

"Say hullo to Faramir." She says softly. "He's sleeping." She puts the bundle into Pippin's arms.

"He's got my hair." Pippin thinks out loud, voice soft with wonder. Rosie smiles.

"You bet he does."

At the sound of their voices, Faramir opens his eyes. He looks up, wide eyed, and Pippin clutches him a little tighter.

For a pair of eyes so new, they bear a startling……no, an _uncanny_ resemblance to Frodo Baggins'.

Faramir starts to cry. And from behind the closed, Merna lets out a shriek.

"Rock him." Rosie stutters breathlessly, turning to dash back inside the bedroom. Leaving Pippin clutching a squalling baby, standing in the center of a round little living room, all thoughts of a rocking chair long forgotten as he wishes desperately that Rosie'd taken the baby back with her.

OOO

"I want to start fresh, like a baby in a sink, scrub away all these thoughts that I think…..of you."-Ingrid Michaelson

Welcome to the Triquel Kitties. R&R for more. grins


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I wanted to be alone with him. He was mine. But in my present state, I could not be left alone. Rose, or Eglantine, or Estella or Esme or Rose's mother….they were always hovering over me, over him. Checking to see that I wasn't dripping blood down my thighs, that my stitches held; that I stayed abed, that I ate what I was given. I could feel my body getting softer and softer as the days went by. Every muscle that I had built up in the last year, last months…gone. Melted into a soft bedspread.

And they were just standing there, watching, as the person that I was disappeared.

My only time with him, was when he had to nurse, and only then were they content to leave me be. He was a hungry boy, my Faramir. It was nothing short of what I expected, for such a lovely hobbit babe. He ate twice in an hour for the first two weeks. Then once an hour, after that, as he began to nurse longer, and fill his tummy more.

When I wasn't feeding him, someone else would come and pluck him from me, tell me to sleep, or rest, or eat, while they rocked and cooed at my son. I lay in an empty bedroom and cried.

I was deserted.

Pippin couldn't bear to look at the baby, sent cringing glances my way. Once we were both safe from death, that first day, he left. I think Faramir broke his heart. Those eyes of his…even I saw the resemblance, though I couldn't for the life of me figure out how it had happened….

I don't know if he came back, or how often. I spent my days in my round little bedroom, staring out the window, cut off from the rest of the house. I hadn't even set foot in the kitchen in the four weeks since Faramir had been born. Not even the privy, since the chamber pot was brought in. I felt like a prisoner.

Frodo also, did not come. I did not ask him to. The shards of his broken heart would no doubt, turn to tatters what was left of mine. I missed him, a dull ache that escalated into a full burning. I missed how he treated me, how he knew what I was thinking. I pictured him with Faramir in his arms at least once a day. And still, for all of my yearning, he never came.

It was another somber fall day, morning dawned gray and impassive. A wall of clouds held back the sun. I rolled over, the other side of the bed, cold, unwelcoming. I listened for Faramir's cry, and heard nothing. It wasn't an hour then, since his last feeding. How long had I lain awake, I wondered. I sat up cautiously, my nightgown stuck to my side with sweat. I peeled it off, and shivered in the cool room. Standing, I walked over to the bureau. My feet at least, made no note of discomfort, but goose bumps rippled along my skin.

I gathered up shift, dress, and a sweater to put around my shoulders, and walked back to the bed, to sit and get dressed. I stopped in front of my long mirror. I almost didn't recognize myself. I was so used to being round that my deflated stomach was a shock even now.

Cautiously, I stripped off my bottoms and stood, turning this way and that, to look at myself.

My hair had gotten so long…the curls of it brushed the tops of my shoulders. It was lackluster, and heavy with oil. I hadn't fully submerged in water since Faramir's birth, in constant fear of upsetting the wound between my legs.

My face was slack, gaunt. They told me constantly, that I did not eat enough. I ate what I could, so that I would produce enough milk, but I put no weight on myself, and by the looks of it, had lost some.

Everything else was soft. My arms.. .my breasts, still large and full of milk. My stomach was slack, and pale like the belly of a fish, though the breastfeeding was helping to draw it back into place. My legs…soft, buttocks, soft.

I was hideous. A pale reminder of the woman who had ridden kingly horses, traveled by foot through half of Hobbiton, the woman who had loved, and fought fiercely for those she loved.

I dropped the clothes into a pile on the floor and slipped back into bed, nude and ashamed.

Who could possibly love the soft, sallow, cringing, hobbit that I had become?

ooo

She was depressed. We all knew it. No one had expected this outcome. She was so healthy, so vibrant, when she was pregnant. Sad, maybe, for spells here and there, but strong. It was impossible to imagine that this is what she would become. So different from her former self, so as to almost need a new name.

Pippin couldn't bear it. The few times he went back, she was asleep, or crying softly in the back bedroom, so that he left with murmured thanks after only minutes. He told me he couldn't bring himself to see her that way. I knew he couldn't bring himself to see the baby either. Faramir was a good baby, calm, quiet, awake. And his eyes…it was odd enough to look at him the way it was, and I was not supposed to be his father. Again, Pippin had managed to take every strand of his life and snarl it into an unfixable mess.

The girls tried to help her, Estella told me about it every night. She said it was like talking to a ghost. Merna made no attempt at conversation. Fed the baby, and allowed him to be taken from her. Made no protest. _She was not strong_. That's what Estella told me. And that sentence alone gave me shivers.

She used to be one of the strongest of us all.

OOO

A new chapter…I cannot believe it has been this long. To all of you who stayed loyal, I am going to continue this story. I have missed these characters. Merna especially--This one is for you.

Thanks! I hope to hear from some of you.

Yours somberly, and finally,

PLK


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Most days now, I wondered what I would even do with myself if and when my babysitters vanished. The day that Rose and Esme and Estella and all the rest left me—would I be strong enough to handle Faramir on my own? It had been six weeks since his tumultuous birth, now mid-December, and winter was fully upon the Shire.

I was getting stronger each day, making little progresses, standing, walking down the hall to the privy. But my meals were still cooked; my son still taken care of but for his feedings, and my every want was met and fulfilled by someone else, most often, before I even voiced the need. I felt like a patient to be sure, and though I don't think that's quite what the women around me were going for, they couldn't change how it felt.

Heavy skirts, along with woolen vests and sweaters concealed my soft and lack luster form from myself, and concealed the weight I was losing from everyone else. I had no appetite, and the only reason I ate anything at all was to be able to feed my little redheaded baby. The baby weight I had gained while pregnant seemed to slip from me, with no effort on my own part. I slept often, the light was so low and the world was so muffled with the snows.

There is something incomprehensible about the face of an infant. A tiny person, brand new, without a past, unscarred. They are wholly terrifying.

It has been weeks since his birth; and still, I cannot believe him.

This baby, red-haired, wrinkled and hungry all of the time, is completely mine. And he will be the only one. He will never know the bother of a crying sister waking him up at night. Will never have to learn to share his mother, or his favorite toy.

I still do not know what to say to him. As we sit and rock, I look at his little face, a miniature of the face that I have looked upon and loved for countless days, mounting months; and am speechless. I stutter out simple sentences and hum because he seems to like the sound. But I cannot find any words to weave him a story.

I have tried telling him about his namesake, about his father, his birth. But all of it comes out garbled. The memories seem to run away from me.

I didn't know what I was waiting for, but I couldn't seem to start again since Faramir's birth, didn't feel a whole person anymore, capable of going on. Once upon a time, I would have hated myself for the weakness of it all—now I just lived with it and slept.

OOO

Rosie's pregnancy seemed to be the final brick in the wall that Merna had built between herself and the rest of us. Rose was over four months along when she and Sam finally let word get out.

I don't think Merna was jealous. Though that is what the others surmised. The pain in her face after she knew, stemmed from something else. After that, she was just, blank. The only one who got any emotion out of her at all was little Faramir. He could smile now, and she smiled back at her son with real love.

The rest of us got nothing. We might as well not have existed.

As Rosie got bigger, Merna got smaller. Faramir was two months old and doing well, he was getting chubbier by the day. I wondered how she did it. How that baby put on weight as his mother withered away in front of us.

Sam and Rosie pulled away from her, spending less and less time at her home, as they prepared themselves for the new member of their family. I think that was best either way. It must have been hard for Merna to watch. To see another baby be welcomed into a loving, complete home, while it was still, just her and Faramir.

I wanted to get close to her, be someone she could trust. But Merna and I had never been close…I ranked last in her friendships, it didn't bother me, it was how it was. Still, I tried to hug her a little tighter when I left at night with Estella, hold her a second longer. She needed it, even if she wouldn't say so.

And not for the first time, did I find myself wishing that one of those two that had been so madly in love with her, would just step up, and be the person that she needed.

"Come now, hush, hush. Here it is, don't cry." Merna coos. Faramir is wriggling, turning his face away, and crying quietly.

Merna bends to press kisses on his face, breathing sweetly across his little nose. "You're hungry, I know you are. So calm down, baby, shhh." She croons. Faramir's eyes settle on his mother's face, his chest swelling with a sigh; and he turns his face back and latches on.

"Alright, we're decent, you can look."

I turned around and Merna smiled, she'd settled a blanket lightly over herself and Faramir's round head. She laughed quietly at me in that old-Merna way I had missed.

I was sure my ears red to their tips, and wished ruefully that I had just waited in the kitchen for her, after she'd said it was time to feed the baby.

"Hi." I tell her, grinning. "I've brought the groceries. They're in the pantry already. How are you?"

She shakes her head. "If I keep getting deliveries like this, I'll be bigger soon than I was when I was pregnant. I'm wonderful, how are you?"

Looking ruefully at the way her collarbones jut from above the blanket draped across her, I can only shrug. "Bored. Pippin is still being swarmed by his sisters…not to mention his mum now that they aren't occupied with you, and Sam and Rosie are swimming in each others' eyes an even higher percentage of the time."

"What about Estella?"

"Being sent off seems to have touched a nerve. She knew it was time for you to have the baby to yourself, but I got two earfuls all week about it." I sighed.

"And Frodo?" Merna twitched a bit, just at the sound of his name and Faramir seemed to tense. He was his mother's son, as in tune to her heart as she was. She patted his little back, and rocked a little more insistently.

"Frodo doesn't come out of his hole." Merry bit his lip.

"What? What else is wrong?" Merna questioned, smoothing a hand over Faramir's back, patting gently.

"I guess he's covered most of the windows in his study with maps. Maps of the mountains, and of Rivendell. It seems like he wants to leave again, venture out of the Shire completely."

Merna swallowed, nodded. Talking about anything that concerns Frodo upsets her. And I still don't understand how she went from homeless to owning Frodo's second hole. What could have possessed Frodo to be so generous when even hearing her name obviously still upset him as well.

At this point, it didn't seem as if anymore meddling was going to improve the situation, so I tried to just stay out of it. It had been a few days over a week since Merna had expelled all of her helpers from her home, and Estella was prodding on an almost daily basis to go check on Merna and the baby. It was obvious that Estella didn't wholly trust her to be alone with Faramir. But from what he could see, she was doing just fine. The little tyke didn't look any worse for wear, and it was reassuring to see Merna out of bed, and up and about.

"Do you think he'll leave then?" She asked quietly, chewing her lip, still looking intently down at the baby instead of up at me.

"No—well, at least not for a while yet. Winter in the Shire is one thing, winter in the mountains is another, and I think we all learned that lesson well. Even the trek to Rivendell would be more horrible than usual this time of year."

He knew she already knew this, just needed some reassurance.

Merna looked up, eyes glassy. "I can't bear the thought of him leaving, as selfish and horrible as that makes me. Does he ever ask about me?" She reached a trembling hand up and smoothed a long strand of hair back from her eyebrow, thumb playing across the scar there.

And sitting there in her parlor, snow falling outside, I knew that the answer to that question would hurt her, but lying would just prolong the pain.

"No, Merna. He doesn't."

At that, she gave me a watery smile, and asked if I'd be on my way so she could put the baby down for a nap.

Ooo

A large part of Frodo Baggins wanted to come to her rescue. He knew how bad off she was—at the present he'd stopped having Merry, or Pippin to Bag End just because he couldn't take listening to the retelling of just how bad.

His heart ached for her, for the babe that they all told him had his eyes. However uncanny the resemblance, he was self-assured that it could be explained away by the blood he shared with Pippin's family, on his mother's side. Though, a small voice inside of him piped up that Faramir could well be his, and the child's red hair explained by that same family tie with the Tooks.

And so Merna still tormented his heart, though he hadn't seen her face in weeks. Bag End was his prison—even trips to the bakery or the post were uncomfortable. He sensed knowing glances and could almost palpate the nervous energy of the hobbits around him. He wondered how they all suddenly knew so much about his once private, existence.

Sam had taken to shopping and gardening for him once again, refusing payment in all forms except for the occasional sharing of dinner or second lunch.

The weeks passed, while the days got shorter, colder, darker. They mirrored his mood. Even letters from Gandalf did nothing to cheer him. His maps and charts were unpleasant to look on as well, for as much as he would have loved to leave the Shire, he knew putting more distance between him and Merna wouldn't lessen the hurt.

Disgusted at the stalemate they were now locked in, but too dismayed to do anything proactive about it—Frodo continued to wait.

OOO


End file.
